The sunset had painted the compartment gold, the faint warmth of late summer leaking in through the glass. Outside, fields swept by lazily; patches of green and brown stretched as far as Selwyn's eyes could see. In the distance, cattle grazed with the calm indifference only beasts could afford. It was a picture of peace, a contrast to the storm brewing quietly in Lucius Selwyn's mind.
He had been sitting quietly while Harry and Ron stuffed Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans into their mouths like starved badgers. Ron, predictably, had eaten his fill and was now half-choking on a chocolate frog that had attempted escape. Selwyn himself had refused sweets — he considered it beneath his dignity to scramble after enchanted candy like a first-year with no sense of composure. Instead, he let his gaze linger on the horizon, and somewhere between the shifting fields and the slow burn of the setting sun, a realization began to form.
This story…
This world…
It wasn't new.
He remembered it. Not from books he'd read in this life, not from bedtime stories told by doting parents — Merlin knew the Selwyn household had little patience for fairy tales — but from before. From the bed, the hospital, the half-life that was his first life.
The nurse.
She had been French. Her accent heavy, her patience deeper than the sea, her kindness strange and unnecessary in a world that had mostly forgotten him. She'd told him stories, second-hand echoes of books her husband had read to their daughter. She hadn't remembered all the details — she admitted she'd fallen asleep after the first few paragraphs most nights. But she filled the gaps with her own imagination, and the tale of a boy wizard became half-truth, half-invention. To him, it had been everything.
And now, sitting here on a train rattling toward a castle of magic, Selwyn realized with an icy chill that the "fairy tale" was real. Very real.
He turned his head back into the compartment. Harry Potter — scrawny, bespectacled, green-eyed — was the spitting image of the boy from the nurse's patched-together tales. Even the chocolate-smeared Ron was here, as if someone had cracked the storybook open and dragged its characters into his life. And if that were true…
Well, then he knew how this story went. Or at least parts of it.
The nurse had been inconsistent. Names were lost on her — she had stumbled over "Harry" so badly she had simply called him le garçon Potter, the Potter Boy. But there had been one name she had spoken with startling clarity. A name that rolled off her tongue with the smooth menace of the French it belonged to.
Voldemort.
The flight from death. The fear of death. The thief of life.
She had whispered it with no hesitation, no superstition. She hadn't feared the name, only respected its strangeness. Selwyn hadn't either. It was just a word then. Now it felt like a curse.
He leaned back in his seat, folded his arms, and asked, almost lazily, "So what is the name of this 'Dark Lord' you all keep trembling about? Or is it a secret only fit for bedtime stories?"
The timing was exquisite. Ron had just lunged for his escaping chocolate frog, fingers swiping clumsily through the air. At Selwyn's casual question, the boy froze mid-reach. His mouth dropped open. His freckles drained of colour. Even the frog, as though sensing the gravity of the moment, hopped once and disappeared under the seat.
Ron sat stiff as a board, lips opening and closing like a fish, but no sound emerged. Even his pet rat — useless little lump that it was — seemed to stiffen in his lap, its beady eyes glassy with some hidden recognition.
Selwyn smirked faintly at Ron's silence, then turned deliberately toward Harry. "Well, surely you know. You're the one who—" he pitched his voice into mock reverence— "defeated him, oh Boy Who Lived. Care to enlighten us?"
The carriage fell silent but for the clack of the train. Harry stared at the floor for a moment, then raised his head. His lips moved first in a whisper, barely audible. And then, stronger, sharper, as though forcing himself to speak:
"Voldemort."
Ron made a strangled noise, half gasp, half choke. His face had gone paler than milk, so white his flaming hair looked unnatural against it. He pressed himself back into the seat as though the name itself might strike him down.
But Selwyn… Selwyn's eyes widened for an entirely different reason. He knew that word. The syllables, the sharp French cadence — they clicked into place like a lock opening.
Voldemort. Vol de mort. Flight from death.
The nurse's voice echoed in his mind: The snake must die, little one. The boy will be put on trial, and the snake must die. She had said it so many times, as if it were the only fragment of the tale she truly remembered. At the time, it had been nothing but a curiosity, a patchwork of fantasy. Now, it was prophecy.
Selwyn felt a shiver run through him. He looked back out the window quickly, unwilling to let either boy see the shock on his face. The sun had dipped lower now, the golden light blurring against the horizon. His thoughts spun.
Harry Potter was real. Voldemort was real. Which meant the rest of the story was likely real too. Only… he didn't know how much. The nurse had confessed she'd slept through most of it. He knew scattered fragments — something about a trial, something about a snake. And then nothing. A cliffhanger that had haunted him in the lonely nights before death.
But if Harry Potter was destined for greatness in that story… then how could this story possibly unfold, when Harry looked so small, so frail, so utterly unprepared for anything?
Selwyn was still chewing on the thought when the door slid open again. The creak of wood and metal broke the tense silence. Ron nearly leapt out of his skin, still pale as chalk.
In the doorway stood a pale-haired boy, chin tilted upward, robes perfectly pressed, every strand of blond hair in place as though he'd polished each one. His grey eyes swept the compartment with clinical disdain.